Student exam answers...sort of offensive edition

While in the end written answers are far more painful to grade than multiple choice, they do happen to act as little windows to my students' souls. It's interesting what they pick up, selectively process, and warp from my lectures. One of the most astounding responses I got was for the definition of sexual dimorphism.

"A sexual disorder where an animal wants to have sex with another species of the same sex"

I'm not quite sure when I gave that definition. I AM certain that I defined sexual dimorphism like... a million times.

I also like to include the question, "If you could be any kind of non-human primate what kind would you be and why?" in my exams because it forces the students to spit something they learned about primates out and I always hope the answers will be entertaining. Generally the guys want to be gorillas so they can get some from all the females, while the ladies want to be marmosets because the baby daddy's take care of offspring. One student answered that she would want to be a mammal.

In other news I am having a severe cheese attack. Someone please take the feta away.

Jesus the Destroyer?

Oooooooh look at the crazy comment left on my previous blog.

"IT'LL BE SUCH A GREAT DAY WHEN JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, DESTROYS ALL YOU "CONSERVATIVES." YOU'RE ALWAYS WHIMPERING ABOUT HOW THE SUPREME COURT SHOULDN'T BE ACTIVIST, AND HERE'S KENNEDY THROWING THE "CONSERVATIVES" A BONE JUST IN TIME FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.HYPOCRITES ALL. JESUS PLEASE DESTROY THESE EVIL ANIMALS. THANK YOU, LORD.AMERICA'S NOW DOING EVERYTHING THE COMMUNISTS DID TO THEIR PEOPLE. LOOKS LIKE THE CONSERVATIVES LOST AFTER ALL: dinoberry.googlepages.com/home "

Because conservative politicians and judges are WAY smarter than doctors

The bad news which I initially got from feministing this morning.

Really I'm not sure what to say aside from the obvious wtfomg@!#!!! The Bush administration has gotten what it wanted with a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the ban on partial birth abortions.

Ginsberg's comments make me feel like someone actually thought about what was going on. Too bad she was in the minority.


"the Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." She said the federal ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

Just shoot me

Am I high? Apparently the ACLU is teaming up with the NRA to spotlight nasty Texas law enforcement types for arresting people with unliscenced firearms in their vehicles. Guh?

Even as a native Texan I am amazed by some of the wacky laws. While it makes perfect sense (to me at least) that carrying an unliscenced gun is a bad thing - especially in a car - you can do this in Tejas if you are "traveling". This outdated code is based on the dangers of traveling long distances when there were many a street bandit. Now I lived in Texas for quite a few years and never had to deal with roving banditos holding up my covered wagon as I made the long journey from El Paso to Amarillo. The way I have seen it is that people love their guns and will do anything to keep them in their hands...at all times....unliscenced or not. I can't really think of serious dangers in the suburbs of Houston as you travel from your home to the grocery store that would constitute the need for a gun in your vehicle as self defense. I can see how police officers would be a bit concerned if someone is carrying an unliscenced firearm in their car, however. Maybe I'm just crazy.

I may be biased by my past experiences. I used to work on a ranch which means that many of my coworkers were full fledged gun nuts. We're talking people who go "varmint" hunting in the middle of the night with campers ranging from ages 9-15. If anyone is not familiar with varmint hunting (ah I remember the days when I wasn't) you ride around in a truck in the middle of the night, stop, flash your brights and flashlights, find all the little nocturnal animals, and shoot away. I also remember going to an open bar at the same ranch where some guy came in toward the end of the night brandishing his new gun. He opened the case and started passing it around. I think it was loaded. We were all plastered. I sort of feared for my life, but was far more taken with the absurdity of the situation. This is the kind of responsibility people take with their firearms.

One of the most interesting things I saw in the NY Times article was how the NRA was trying to combat racial profiling.... against rednecks. I think the term is "Bubba profile". So basically this is protection of white dudes with mullets. I am sure they get far more profiling when found with unliscenced guns in their cars than other demographics. Whatevs. Texans are crazy, dude.

My life in one cartoon

The funniest part is that my dad sent this to me

What the hoohah happened to March?

Seriously is it the second day in April? I could have sworn it was January a few days ago.

I got back from Annual Professional Conference on Saturday. It was kind of a blast, especially since I got to see the ever so fabulous La Blonde, the babe with the bones, as well as other non-blogging friends whom I missed terribly. Of course the presence of Brazen Hussy and Prairie Oyster would have made everything complete. So what if your taxon of choice has changed? Can't you just come to the meetings to hang out and drink martinis with me?

The actual content of the meetings was pretty interesting. I got to talk to a lot of people about my hair brained research ideas which gave a good number of them some pause, after which they shook their heads and said "Not a bad idea, should be persued." Ah. If only those ideas could be turned in to a workable disseration within my program. We'll see what happens.

All the good talks (shocking...there weren't too many bad ones) and cool posters I finally started to get some fire under my ass to present next year. It has been really annoying that at this stage in my graduate studenthood I haven't had any time to accomplish some real research. Instead I've been channeling all my energy in to teaching, doing bitchwork, and taking mindnumbingly useless classes (linguistics) which has left little time to, I dunno, formulate a dissertation topic or put out small publications. I'm kind of determined to get something out next year though.

It's pretty terrifying that it is April already and I haven't accomplished a whole lot. Maybe more work and less blogging?